Delta Blues Legend David "Honeyboy" Edwards live @ Hugh's Room this Sunday

[Jaimoe]

The last of the Mississippi Delta bluesmen, Honeyboy Edwards plays Hugh's Room in Toronto this Sunday. I can't go, but man, I really want to. He's performing with harp master Bobby Rush. Edwards may be old, but he's still winning contemporary awards. He won the W.C. Handy Acoustic Blues Acoustic Guitarist Award this year and has a Grammy nomination. Here's Greg Quill's Star article from today's paper:

Even the blues are singing the blues

Dec 13, 2007 04:30 AM

GREG QUILL

ENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST

The blues will always be with us, Mississippi Delta blues legend David "Honeyboy" Edwards admits over the phone from his home in Chicago, but he's worried about how to win over a new generation of African Americans who seem to have turned their backs on their own musical legacy.

"More white people care about the blues these days," said the 92-year-old guitarist and singer.

"The black kids are doing rap, and there's no feeling in rap. It's just rhymes and a beat. You need music to give a song its feeling. And that means you've got to learn to play an instrument. You need an instrument for the blues to survive. And the rap kids aren't interested."

That's a sentiment shared by longtime Toronto concert promoter Richard Flohil, who got his start bringing blues masters B.B. King and Bobby "Blue" Bland to town back in the 1960s.

He's promoting Edwards and harmonica virtuoso Bobby Rush at Hugh's Room Sunday night in a show he's billing as the blues concert of the year – no idle boast, considering that this year Edwards received the 2007 WC Handy Acoustic Blues Acoustic Guitarist Award, shares in the glory of a Grammy nomination for album Last of the Great Mississippi Bluesmen: Live in Dallas, and was the subject of a heartfelt tribute at the 30th annual Delta Blues and Heritage Festival in Greenville, Miss.

"With the very last of the original Delta blues singers and guitar players, and an opening artist of the stature of Bobby Rush, you'd figure that every seat would have been long gone ... not so," says Flohil, who admits the blues have seen better times.

Still, Edwards isn't exactly feeling the pinch. In the last 12 months he has performed more than 100 shows, more than half of them in Europe, where he's regarded as American musical royalty. He has just recorded an album with Rush, of popular pre-rock uptempo blues favourites, due for release in a couple of months.

"My mind is as good as it's ever been, I don't need a wheelchair, and I'm feeling good," he says.

Just the facts

WHO: David ``Honeyboy'' Edwards and Bobby Rush

WHEN: Sunday, 8:30 p.m.

WHERE: Hugh's Room, 2261 Dundas St. W.

TICKETS: $28.50 at 416-531-6604, $32.50 at the door

Edited December 13, 2007 by Guest

[The Chameleon]

Whaat! This is huge. Honeyboy is from the original gereation of blues men like Robert Johnson and Son House. He was in fact playing on the same bill with Johnson the night he was poisoned. Talk about being there!

I saw him at the Chicago Blues fest a few years back and he was stellar. It was like being trasported back in time...

I also think he's gotta be pushin' 90 too. Not to be missed!

[\/\/illy]

92 actually. Boy do I wish I could make this show. Sure to be amazing.

[briguy]

he's also playing in London the night before.

[M]

I'll be there!! Can;t wait!